Backpay - Royal Court Theatre
Mina, a young white South African girl, visits her old black nanny Sophie, whom she hasn’t seen for 10 years, in her home in Soweto. The reunion is not as joyful as she had hoped. When looking for things past, one often searches for and remembers what has never really been.
Mina is particularly put ill at ease by Adele, Sophie’s daughter, a school teacher, who expresses the ever present rancour of her people in the post-Apartheid world. Adele provokes Mina, who, gauche, is unable to face up to her and leaves a little hastily, accompanied by Bafana, Sophie’s son, on her insistence.
Mina lives alone with a rather cold and absent mother, with whom she has difficulty communicating. To her surprise and deprecation, Mina tells her she has visited Sophie. Mina starts visiting Sophie again and a secret interest grows between her and Bafana...
‘Backpay’, the work of a 23 year old South African, is an absorbing and powerful play with its touches of humour. Although set in the particular context of post-Apartheid, the drama taking place could easily be transposed to another setting and indeed another time.
The acting was excellent. The actors were well fitted in their parts ; particularly Do(a Croll as Sophie, the old fashioned black mamma, a little rough but at the same time very perceptive, and Diane O’Kelly as Mina, who expressed remarkably well a certain embarrassment, an often maladroit spontaneity and all her distress. The setting was voluntarily kept to a minimum.
The choice of staging ‘Backpay’ in the Circle of the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs was very appropriate in that it helped reinforcing the spectator’s involvement in the drama. The distance between actor and audience is nearly abolished, the first row being at the same level as the stage, no more than a meter away. Both room and stage are very small, creating a feeling of intimacy. In addition, the spectator chooses his seat upon entering the circle as seating is unreserved.
As a spectator, one experienced that delightful feeling, too often absent in larger productions, that the performance was dedicated to and acted in a very personal way, with feeling and intensity for the small audience.
Danut
